Insiders Say Outdoor Media Is Dead, But Do Readers Agree?

In early 2021, something of a soft coup occurred at Outside, the venerable, legendary magazine that had begun life decades earlier not as the lofty thought incubator for the rising outdoor subculture it would become, but as another arrow in Rolling Stone founder and publisher Jann Wenner’s growing quiver of titles.

Long since owned and fostered by Mariah Magazine founder Larry Burke, the Santa Fe-based Outside was but one of many acquisitions made by a mysterious and fledgling outfit then known as Pocket Outdoor Media.